In memory of a Mount Washington street tree

MOUNT WASHINGTON — The cutting down of a large street tree on Avenue 45 near Marmion Way prompted someone to create a memorial to the same tree. Candles and flowers have been placed on the tree stump and a poster hanging on a nearby fence asks “Why?”

14 comments

If you go to street view (it was a short distance down Ave. 45 from the indicated intersection) , you can get a good guess at the reason. The tree is tilted over at an angle. All of its growth was on one side (the same side as the curb). It was a matter of time until it fell over. It would have fallen into the street and perhaps across some power lines.

You missed the point. Its about what the progress we make in society means for us as a people in this enviornment. Its a tribute to what that tree stood for. There is not need to explain why it was necessary. Theres no question it was necessary to someone or it still would be standing. In defending the act and insulting the sensitive, we choose not to appreciate the loss that someone else felt was necessary to express.

What is my response for the tree’s removal? Its too bad the cost of progress can alienate us so from the world we share I only hope that its result is bringing us together as a people. This was probably so they could put in overpriced condos or a starbucks parking lot so fuck you but I get it…

oh and nobody is making signs for their dog when they die, but they probably do still miss them.

Yup – this particular murdered tree is the Martyr that will bring us “together as a people”. One day we will all look back and tell our children where we were when the mighty tree fell. Schools will be named for it, monuments will be built. a national holiday created and banks will close in observance (ironically – greedy bastards).

The “sign” will be enshrined in the Smithsonian where it will be a flash point for a billion selfies and the stump will become ground zero for those wishing to reflect on what it “stood for”. Of course there will have been those who chose to “appreciate the loss” and the birth of the Treester movement as we know it will have come full circle.

Eventually there will be those who will resent and blame the Treesters for everything, and they will take to putting up signs too -not very welcoming ones either.

Also, sorry flowers. It was not your fault we cut the tree down, yet we killed you too to make the bouquets we laid on the dead tree. That’s just how we are. @Ishamine sorry about your dog, too. It probably was not a very good dog. Not quite as good as that tree, obviously.

The fact is someone bought the land on the corner and the house next to it and is going to put in some really ugly apartments and to do that, the tree had to go. I do hope they got the required permit to cut down a street tree and that they have to put up replacement tree(s). Leaning does not mean the tree is going to fall over. The heartwood of the tree is healthy and that means healthy roots too. There wouldn’t be enough winds in that area to bring a tree down so it presented no threat. As it WAS a street tree the arborist would have to approve its removal. If he didn’t then I hope someone reports these people to make sure the owners have to do the right thing.

It’s a carob tree, and they have a tendency to rot in just this way. My block has lost a number of them. They can hang on for a long time in the presence of interior rot like you see in the photo, but I think the unbalanced crown is what did this one in.

Related: It had been that the Bureau of Street Services had their own team of arborists (which was down to, literally, a handful of people for the whole city). These folks were the only city people doing trimming. (That is to say, outside the process by which a property owner can pay for work to be done after pulling a permit.)

In talking with them, they seemed rather demoralized, as well as having an all-chiefs-and-no-indians problem, presumably due to rounds of layoffs that took the less-senior.

Anyway, I have noticed city-paid trimming being done by private crews in the last few months (contracted by the city). It seems that someone decided the old system needed revamping.

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